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Mars: the Total Recall Settlement Option

Some sci fi fans may not be aware that Philip K. Dick's "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" provides only a fraction of the plot for the film version Total Recall.  In fact, Dick's story never gets to Mars, except indirectly in memories that may be illusions.  The entire portrayal of life on Mars was added somewhere in the middle of a writing process that involved some forty drafts, with numerous inputs and cancellations from successive directors and producers, and eventually Arnold Schwartzenegger himself, who was the last of many actors envisioned for the lead over sixteen years of production.

  
Even the various features of the Mars segments went through a complicated evolution.  Neither the memorable Venusville scenes, nor the scenes in the reactor, nor the nature of the turbidium mountain itself were part of the original plans.  As has happened with other great films such as Casablanca, we can only thank our lucky stars that a masterpiece emerged from a byzantine and often off-the-cuff creative history.

Nevertheless, the portrayal of the Martian colony contains a great deal that may apply to an eventual effort to settle the Red Planet.  First of all, we should mention the crucial importance of a reliable oxygen supply to the success of the endeavor, as well as the assumption that such a supply will not come easily through some magic wand of terraforming based on human technology.  In Total Recall the first groups of settlers are poisoned by the lack of clean air, which produces the generations of mutants that populate Venusville.   It is only through the deus ex machina of highly superior alien tech that Mars is terraformed at the conclusion of the movie, a virtually last-minute addition that caused much controversy among the filmmakers.  While the dangers of toxicity on Mars have ony recently begun to receive much attention, the oxygen quandary has been known for well over a century now and efforts to solve it seem still as quixotic as the plan in Jules Verne's From Earth to the Moon bring trees in a space vehicle to plant on the lunar surface.

Another item considered in Total Recall (and noticeably absent in The Martian) is the possibility of living inside the planet instead of on the surface.  This clever alternative might even be accomplished robotically, sparing future Mars-farers many of the travails posed by erecting domes or dodging dust-storms.  Robotic construction missions might, of course, involve much time and expense -- but less than trying to provision a colonial garrison.  This is especially true if the robotic crews had access to an adequate atomic reactor to produce electricity without the need for much water or any combustion.  

Unfortunately, Total Recall does not address the issue of feeding a Martian colony, other than that the inhabitants of Venusville seem to somehow have access to huge supplies of alcohol.  We now know that it could not come from The Martian's little garden of potatoes, since the soil fortuitously used in the latter film now appears to be highly toxic to most of Earth's flora.  Here, we may find a solution in another sci fi classic, Outland.  The mining settlement in that film featured a very extensive vertical greenhouse that plays a major part in the violent finale.  It is conceivable that such a facility could be constructed in the shelter of a sunlit Martian canyon wall that would avoid some of the abrasive dangers of dust storms.  Perhaps another contribution could be supplied by Einstein's favorite vegetable, mushrooms.  It is only with tongue in cheek that we can mention the name of The Mole People, where a subterranean remnant of Sumerians is kept alive largely by edible fungi.  Such underground farms could, though, certainly make a contribution to the diet of humans on Mars, should a cavern system be excavated beforehand.  

At least one other problem must be overcome in order to achieve a community based on human Martian troglodytes: marsquakes.  Recent research shows that they are much more frequent than previously believed.  There is clearly more we need to know about the deeper nature of the Martian core and its movements before we can invest in the type of venture suggested by Total Recall.  Geological stability, at least within manageable parameters, is a must to support a sub-Mars colony.  Just comparing Mars settlement to that of the New World in the Age of Discovery, we should realize right now that we face definite limitations to the number of failed missions we as a planet can support.  The disappearances of the viking communities in Greenland and Newfoundland, the Portuguese colony on Cape Breton Island, Gosnold's post in Cuttyhunk, the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island, or the French port in what is now South Carolina offer ample evidence that even less hostile environments than Mars can gobble up groups of humans who face difficulties in contact and resupply.  

Surely, some of these issues will also present themselves in the nearer future as we attempt to develop ressources on the Moon.  A viable colony there is, after all, a likely necessity before we can move large masses of people and material to Mars.  Perhaps there we can begin to work on solutions to the bigger problem.  As we do so, it may be advisable to avoid some of the mistakes made in the New World experience, where humans fighting amongst each other forced many efforts to collapse.  It may take the unity of all Earthlings to undertake the colossal challenges of interplanetary living.

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